Forest department starts probing lion death

The forest department has constituted five teams to investigate the death of a five-year-old lion whose carcass was found on Dhari-Junagadh Road in Visavadartaluka on Monday.

With no major injuries found on its body in the postmortem analysis, the department officials are suspecting foul play. It was earlier believed that it may have been run over by a vehicle. "There were no major injuries to suggest that it was an accident. We now suspect that there is a possibility that the lion may have consumed water in agricultural fields that was mixed with urea fertilizer. We are investigating this aspect," said R L Meena, chief conservator of forests (Wildlife Division), Junagadh Circle.

Sources said that farmers mix urea in water to ward off wild animals like nilgai and wild boar. In this case also, it is being assumed that the lion accidentally consumed contaminated water kept by farmers.

Moreover, the farmers also tried to destroy the evidence by dumping the lion's carcass somewhere else to prove that the wild cat died in a road accident.

Two lions had died in a similar manner near Kantala village of Khambha taluka of Amreli about five years ago.